Move the power unit — and the weight — down by the nozzle and it’s now easier to push and maneuver across bare floors, areas rugs, and carpets. Finally, detach the power unit completely and dyson robot vacuum use it as a handheld for stairs. For an upright vacuum that works well on carpets and bare floors, look no further than the Shark NV151 Navigator Swivel Pro Complete Upright Vacuum.
All of its accessories fit on to the end of the vac seamlessly and although it doesn’t come with storage, you can clip two to the unit if you need to carry any around in use. Bringing its signature smiley face to stick vacs for the first time, this offering from Numatic impressed on test. It’s nimble to use, felt well-balanced and light, and glided effortlessly across every surface we tried it on. Specks and particles that were invisible in regular light came into clear view when the laser hit them.
The Navigator Lift-Away Deluxe and Apex Powered Lift-Away are both on sale today. We’re most excited about the Shark Navigator NV352 because of its outstanding features and under-$200 price tag. It has a one-quart dust cup, a completely sealed HEPA system, and a detachable nozzle to clean hard-to-reach areas. Pet owners praise the vacuum’s performance on hair removal from carpets and rugs and how it only takes one pass to collect all the particles in a pathway. Oreck is another brand worth checking out when it comes to quality upright vacuum cleaners.
Dyson sometimes sells further subvariants of the V7 and V8, with names like “Absolute” or “HEPA” tagged onto the end, and they can all be very good. Just watch out for models with “Fluffy” in the name—they come with a cleaning head that’s excellent on bare floors, but they don’t come with one that works well on rugs. Best of all, the filter is washable so you’ll never have to deal with a smelly vacuum ever again. This Black+Decker is a surprisingly adept carpet cleaner for the price. In our tests, it actually sucked up about the same amount of gritty debris as the Dyson V7 , and it beat out many models that cost much more. We’re really not sure why it worked so well, because we measured relatively weak suction.
We test every vacuum cleaner we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. To see how the irobot vacuum cleaner figures translated into performance, I ran the vacuum through my real-world tests. Starting on the carpet, I sprinkled a teaspoon of flour onto the floor.
She can also recommend the Beldray Revo Cordless Handheld Vacuum Cleaner, which excelled thanks to its lightweight, compact design. It comes with a 2-in-1 nozzle, upholstery brush and crevice nozzle which allow you to clean anything from the sofa, to the curtains or window frames. The lengths of the nozzles are also designed to help you reach higher surfaces such as cupboard tops where you wouldn’t normally think to clean. It’s cordless and has an easy-empty bowl to really make vacuuming a hassle-free experience.
However, despite its size, it offers powerful suction for small messes. While we didn’t test this pick in The Lab, The Spruce’s home product tester put the vacuum through real-world testing, trying it out on pet hair, crumbs, dust, and debris. “I was actually startled by how loud it was ,” says our home product tester. “But the suction was really powerful, so it was a welcome trade-off.” In addition, although assembly was simple, this handheld pick needed to be charged fully before use, which took about two and a half hours. I was using a corded upright Dyson for about five years before getting this unit.